3 vie for District 2 seat

Voters in Monterey County Supervisorial District 2 face numerous issues moving into the June 3 primary election, including crime, environmental degradation and the ever-present threat from seawater intrusion.

Three candidates are vying for the District 2 seat, which is being vacated by retiring Lou Calcagno. He was first elected to the seat of District 3 in 1999. After re-districting occurred, he was twice elected to the 2nd District. In 2009 Calcagno began his third term as Board Chairman.

District 2 runs from the Monterey County border in Pajaro down through north Salinas and encompasses the towns of Las Lomas, Moss Landing, Castroville and Prunedale.

Candidates Maria T. Bonilla-Giuriato, John Phillips and Ed Mitchell all share passions for issues unique to District 2 as well as those countywide. Combined, they have lived in Monterey County well over 100 years.

Many of the issues are shared countywide, water problems, transportation and crime chief among them. But others are unique to the Salinas-Pajaro corridor — the nightmare of Highway 156, joblessness and seawater intrusion, as examples.

Maria Bonilla-Giuriato

Maria Bonilla-Giuriato, a former public servant and current policy consultant, said what is missing from much of the debate in the District 2 race is people. She said the dialogue doesn't seem to filter down to how the issues affect the people of District 2, particularly since the make-up of north county residents has been changing dramatically.

North county was originally settled by Latinos, Italians and other European-Americans, but the demographics are shifting toward newly-arrived Mexican families, including many families from indigenous areas of Mexico. Many, if not most, are low-income and are struggling with affordable housing, health care and navigating services — challenges every immigrant wave has faced.

"These residents need representatives who can speak to them, someone to reflect their issues, many of which cross all cultures and languages," Bonilla-Giuriato said. "These people are our workforce for the agricultural and tourism industries."

Bonilla-Giuriato has been advocating for the disadvantaged for more than three decades through Monterey County Social Services, the Salinas City Council and numerous other organizations. She has worked with adults and youth by designing and creating programs that provide access to health care, employment, education, housing, and long-term economic self-sufficiency.

The latter was a key component in serving the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger administration as a deputy secretary of external affairs in the Office of Economic Development. There, she worked with international trade units by calling upon her experience in communications, public relations and government affairs with large corporations, business and agriculture, including many trade missions.

Earlier, Schwarzenegger had appointed her as the Real Estate Industry & Consumer liason in the state Department of Real Estate. She worked with the real estate and banking industries, consumer groups, and state and federal departments to address foreclosure prevention. Bonilla-Giuriato also served on the governor's Foreclosure Prevention Task Force. Focusing on the subprime lending mess, she was involved in legislation to prevent the collection of loan modification advance fees.

"Our district has a lot of affordable housing issues," Bonilla-Giuriato said. "Many growers are looking for workers, yet many are leaving the area because of the lack of housing."

She formerly coordinated the Project Homeowner Foreclosure Town Hall workshops, which were funded by private-sector banks, title companies and insurance companies. When she was with county Social Services department, her efforts included affordable housing, community health, farm worker needs and economic development.

One concept she is putting forward is a housing trust, where a number of private and public entities would contribute to build farm-worker housing.

That's a need that is continuing to grow," she said.

Another need in District 2 and throughout the region is water, an issue she said she's been working on for years. Like the two other candidates for the District 2 seat, Bonilla-Giuriato said she was disappointed with the apparent decision not to build a desalination plant in Moss Landing.

"There were a lot of politics involved in that," she said.

She also shares in common a desire to push transparency in county government.

"Transparency in government is critical," Bonilla-Giuriato said. "Decisions need to be out in the open so voters can be informed and share their views with their representatives."

Ed Mitchell

Ed Mitchell, a former Army Ranger turned aerospace engineer, has made oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — one of the centerpiece issues of his campaign along with water concerns and open government. His nonprofit group, Protect Salinas Valley, is drafting a proposed ordinance that would restrict fracking operations should they come a calling in Monterey County.

Protect Salinas Valley grew out of a project of the environmental groups Aromas Cares for the Environment. Residents of Aromas, which sits at the corner of Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties, have already experienced the thumping of seismic testing trucks in their neighborhoods.

He said he is concerned about potential environmental damage that comes with injecting a number of highly toxic chemicals down into shale bedrock to extract oil, which runs through wells dissecting groundwater aquifers.

But it's also a major economic issue that he views as a challenge to the agricultural culture and economics of the Salinas Valley.

"The question we have to ask is whether there should be unrestricted fracking in the Salad Bowl of the World," Mitchell said. "If it's unrestricted fracking, wells they could go in right next to the river, or next to natural gas holding tanks, or how about next to a wine chateau? We can't allow it to be unrestricted; we need to look at where it might be appropriate."

Mitchell can rattle off many more reasons why fracking anywhere from San Ardo to Aromas is a bad idea in the Salinas Valley — where are the billions of gallons of water needed for the process going to come from?

"Are you going to allow billions of gallons of potable water to be used in this process — water that cannot be recycled?" Mitchell said.

And who's going to maintain the roads from the tens of thousands of additional trucks on the road? What's going to happen to those wells in the seismically active southern part of the county? How many wells will have to go in since they can't be drilled at an angle like other wells?

Yet Mitchell does not want to ban fracking, but he'd rather approach it as a risk assessment — and this is where the engineer in him comes out.

He lays out a simple risk analysis equation: R = PxC, where R is risk, P is probability and C is the consequence. Based on this equation, with the consequences being dire to the agricultural industry, he does not see a viable way of fracking anywhere in the Salinas Valley watershed.

These kinds of policy decisions need to be above board in terms of transparency for the public, another key issue on Mitchell's platform.

"We need to get rid of back-room chats," Mitchell said. "This board has a problem with transparency — the media and the public have exposed this."

He cited a time when he said he reported a developer who failed to provide stored fire protection water in a box canyon that threatened more than 400 residents.

He said the county failed to take action so he contacted the state Assistant Attorney General to force the county to build the fire suppression tanks.

Mitchell said he was also the primary person who gathered evidence against Former Monterey County Water Agency board director Steve Collins, who was indicted over criminal conflict-of-interest charges. Collins pleaded no-contest to the charges in March.

As for holding policy talks in the guise of secret employee performance reviews, Mitchell just shakes his head.

"Performance reviews have become a sham for policy decisions that should be made out in the open," he said.

On the issue of water, Mitchell identifies two key approaches: water quality and water quantity. On water quantity, he said he speaks from his own experience.

"Our ranch went dry in 1995," he said. "So I know it's vital that families, farms and businesses have affordable and sustainable water."

He then became active in water issues, particularly in north Salinas and the rest of the northern portion of the county. Mitchell said he prevented a local aquifer from being polluted 70 percent beyond state standards.

As for the controversial proposed desalination plant, Mitchell said he is firm that it should be constructed in Moss Landing, "where the state Water Board said is the best place." The north county has been dropped from service lines from the current desal project, Mitchell said. Instead, he'd like to see water storage constructed in District 2, perhaps a reservoir on the now dry Merritt Lake bed to collect excess runoff during the winter.

But none of this progress can be obtained while county government is behaving the way it is, he said.

"We need someone on the Board of Supervisors with skill and integrity to step forward," Mitchell said. "What we've seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg."

John Phillips

It's little surprise that District 2 Supervisorial candidate John Phillips points to public safety as a key issue in the race.

Having served 21 years as a judge in Monterey County Superior Court, Phillips said he grew weary of the "tragic cycle of offending and incarceration of so many young people."

So in 2000, Phillips, also a former prosecutor, and a group of local residents founded Rancho Cielo, a program for at-risk youth that continues to yield dividends 14 years later. Since his retirement in 2004, Phillips has devoted most of his time to the continued development of Rancho Cielo.

"I have been deeply committed to violence prevention in our community and have been working on these issues for years," Phillips said. "We all deserve to live and work in a safe and peaceful community. Violence is not just hurting our families, it is hurting our entire community, and our entire community needs to be a part of the solution."

While enforcement is a necessary component of curbing violence, Phillips said his experience has shown that what works better are classrooms, not badges and guns. He advocates allocating county resources in a "meaningful way" — on education, after school programs, job training, parenting programs, behavioral health, alcohol and drug programs, and family counseling.

"I will work to put more emphasis on pro-active involvement with police and sheriffs — encouraging community programs that help build relationships between law enforcement and the community," Phillips said. "To successfully offer our youth an alternative to violence and a chance at a future, we must focus on prevention, intervention, and reinvention that will safely reorient offenders into the community with life skills."

Taking a cue from his years on the bench, where each case required research, Phillips said he has dug into the water issues in north county, spending four months researching proposals and understanding the challenges the region is faced with.

"In the long run, we can't afford to keep using wells until they go dry," he said.

Wells in north county are extremely overdrafted, causing some to go dry and lowering aquifer pressures that allows seawater to make its steady march inland. Earlier this year, The Californian reported on a grower in north county who had to back out of a land lease because he was no longer able to grow crops with the high salt levels in the water.

Phillips said he favors conceptual projects such as constructing a pipeline that carries winter water from the Salinas River near Soledad up to the hardest hit areas in north county. The more water piped in, they less reliance has to be made on groundwater.

North county is not figured in as part of California American Water Co.'s plan to build a desalianation plant to provide drinking water to the Peninsula. Just as well, as that project is far more expensive to water users than a pipeline from the Salinas River, he said.

Another pipeline of sorts running through District 2 is a cause of consternation for Phillips. Highway 156 that connects Highways 101 and 1 between Prunedale and Castroville is a mess. It's ill equipped to handle the current load of traffic, and it's become deadly.

In 2010 Maria Almanza-Romero, 48, was stopped on westbound Highway 156 waiting to make a left turn into a driveway. A big-rig driven by Ronn C. Williams with Bhandal Bros. Trucking in Hollister slammed into the rear of Almanza-Romero's car, pushing it into oncoming traffic. Both the truck and Almanza-Romero's vehicle crashed head-on with a third vehicle.

Almanza-Romero and 4-year-old Alex Navarro, who was a passenger in a third vehicle struck by the truck, perished in the crash.

Williams, his company, Caltrans and the Transportation Agency for Monterey County were sued. Last month a Monterey County jury awarded the plaintiffs $18.7 million.

No plans to fix the roadway have been announced.

"It is not a safe place," Phillips said, citing statistics that show the highway is below state standards for the volume of traffic.

Phillips said he is frustrated by the lack of cooperation between the city of Salinas and Monterey County.

"There's too many jurisdictional disputes and it hasn't gotten us anywhere," he said, adding that he has worked with Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter. He also noted that the District Attorney's offices and the Public Defender's offices are still in portable buildings.

"The city and county could have worked together on it," Phillips said.